This invention relates to a sintered body of a heat-resistant ceramic and a process for production thereof.
Silicon carbide-containing shaped articles were previously proposed, for example, in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publications Nos. 94314/78, 3815/79 and 16521/79, and these patent documents disclose that the silicon carbide-containing shaped articles have good mechanical and thermal properties.
We have now discovered that a shaped article having better properties than a conventional silicon carbide-containing shaped article obtained by firing polycarbosilane can be obtained by firing a semi-inorganic block copolymer whose main-chain skeleton is composed of Si, Zr, C and O atoms.